City Seeks Partner in Fighting Crime : Law enforcement: San Gabriel Valley officials are visiting Taiwan’s Keelung for tips on fighting Asian gangs.

Rosemead’s sister city relationship started out with the usual banquets, VIP treatment of foreign dignitaries and cultural exchange junkets. But the San Gabriel Valley community soon discovered that its sister thousands of miles away might be able to offer practical help on a very non-ceremonial problem: Asian gangs.

On Thursday, a group of valley officials took off for Taiwan’s northern port city of Keelung to meet with police and learn more about the Asian organized crime that is terrorizing its own immigrant community.

The officials hope to fill their black books with law enforcement contacts and learn how to persuade often-reluctant Asian-American victims to report crimes.

The Rosemead-Keelung Sister City Committee organized the trip largely in response to growing concerns about organized crime, and fears that things will get worse after 1997, when Hong Kong reverts to mainland China’s control. The change of power is expected to produce another wave of immigration to the region’s heavily Asian cities.

Media reports about a carjacking ring that provides luxury cars to customers in mainland China underscored the links between Taiwan, mainland China and Asian gang activity in the Los Angeles County area, said Sheriff’s Capt. Bob Mirabella, one of three officials on the trip.

Rosemead Mayor Robert Bruesch and El Monte Police Chief Wayne Clayton are also scheduled to meet with police in Taipei and Keelung, a port city of about 800,000 north of Taipei. Home-invasion robberies, kidnaping, extortion, gambling, prostitution and car theft are just some of the crimes attributed to the Asian gangs here, Mirabella said.

Although members of the sheriff’s Whittier-based Asian Organized Crime Unit have maintained contacts in Taiwan for years, such a fact-finding trip is the first for local officials.

“We want to look and compare structures,” said Mirabella, whose Temple City substation covers Rosemead. “How does Asian crime exist over there in relation to over here? Are we looking at the same types of crimes, the same types of juveniles used to commit the crimes for adults?”

The team also hopes to learn how to persuade business owners to tell authorities when they are victimized, Mirabella said.

“We have a problem here in getting the Asian community to participate in community policing or Neighborhood Watch activities. We need to tap that if we are going to be successful,” he said.

Although few of the crimes are reported, law enforcement officials say they are rampant.

“In heavily concentrated Asian areas, most all of the small Asian businesses are facing one form of extortion or another,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Ron Black of the department’s Asian Organized Crime Unit, who was not on the trip but who frequently speaks to his Far East counterparts. “And they don’t report it because they run the risk of losing their businesses altogether.”

Reluctance to report the crimes can be overcome if law enforcement officials here understand the communities, said David Ma, a Chinese activist in Rosemead and chairman of the sister city committee.

“The Chinese merchants and new immigrants, I think they have a tacit acceptance of extortion,” Ma said. “They treat it as part of a tax, an obligation. A major part is to the government, but a small part is to those (gang members).”

The trip is not the only effort to stem such crime in Rosemead, which is 34% Asian-American according to the 1990 U.S. Census. A school program targets at-risk youths before they are conscripted into the gangs, for instance, and the Chamber of Commerce has a campaign to sign up Asian-American businesses.

The cities of El Monte and Rosemead are paying the way for the two law enforcement officials, but Mayor Bruesch is financing his own trip. Although the visit will include a tour of local schools, visits with the Chamber of Commerce and protocol-laden visits to Keelung City Hall, the goal is decidedly practical, Ma said.

Ma flew to Keelung with a Rosemead delegation when the cities formalized their relationship in 1992. His lengthy discussions with police officials led him to organize this year’s trip.

“We should do more than just have a banquet and have people sightseeing,” he said. Keelung police “have firsthand knowledge of how these gangs operate. I think our officers can go over and learn from the horse’s mouth how they resolved some of their problems.”